The recent movement to pass new online gambling legislation in the United States partially rides on the stance of senate majority leader Harry Reid, a congressman from Nevada, who has been adamantly opposed to online gambling in the past but it now seems that he is open-minded on this matter and has indicated that he could potentially be swayed to change his view.

Senator Reid in the past has always been in disagreement to online gambling due to his representation in the state of Nevada. Nevada is the home of Las Vegas where a large majority of revenue comes from casino gambling. Many opponents in Nevada including Senator Reid worry that online gambling could take away from the revenue in Nevada. Those supporting gambling are working to convince Reid that online gambling could potentially be helpful to Nevada. Reid is open to this idea and is considering these views with the possibility of changing his stance.

Currently, casino owners are beginning to see the benefit in online gambling. Land-based casinos are beginning to lose revenue due to the economic recession. Many land-based gambling companies including Harrah’s entertainment have turned to the internet to help increase their profits. This means that even though gambling takes place online, the casinos based out of Las Vegas can still make a profit. Due to the increased profits of Vegas based companies via the internet, introducing new online gambling legislation could effectively create an even larger profit for Nevada than ever before.

With all the debate that has sparked over the last several years, Reid has always been firm in his opposition. Shelley Berkley, another Nevada representative supports online gambling regulation and sees the value in it. She believes that Reid’s stance may be able to be softened and even changed if he can in fact be convinced that these regulations won’t detract from Nevada’s tourism and will instead increase revenue and stimulate the economy.

The online legislation bill was passed during the recent House Financial Services Committee meeting several weeks ago. Despite this fact, the issue will likely not be brought up again until 2011 after the midterm elections.

M.A.H.